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Nice catch, JT

A surprise announcement yesterday from Justin Trudeau and the LPC, with a new military adviser on the LPC team, and possibly one that will run for election in 2015:

Retired general Andrew Leslie, former commander of Canadian army..has agreed to co-chair an advisory council on international affairs for the Liberal leader and is not ruling out running for the party in the 2015 election…Leslie said his decision to join the Liberals came abruptly a few weeks ago, when news first leaked out about the Quebec government’s proposed charter of values, which would ban public servants from wearing any conspicuous religious symbols.”The only national leader who stood up and articulated my views in a clear and convincing fashion was Justin, who said that the proposed draft charter is not what Canadians want or need,” Leslie said. “It’s divisive and discriminatory. At that moment, I knew I was a member of his team.”

This is a solid strategy to surround JT with people experienced in policy and foreign affairs to insulate him from the “inexperienced” attack; he can point to these folks as being an experienced Liberal team surrounding him (and the reason General Leslie gave for joining – Trudeau’s resounding opposition to the Quebec “Values” Charter – won’t hurt to remind Canadians either about Trudeau being the first out of the block to emphatically denounce it).

Whether or not you’re a Liberal partisan, you have to admit Justin Trudeau has done a very good job keeping himself and the Liberal Party in the news during the Summer break and now the extended prorogation (opposition to the Values Charter, marijuana admission, the Chrystia Freeland nomination in Toronto Centre, and now this appointment). That’s hard to do – particularly for a party which is not the Official Opposition. Normally the governing party and the PM will go around and do funding stuff and announcements and so on to regain momentum heading back into Parliament.. but so far that has been minimized, if not non-existent.